"This track started with an idea to use the title converted to Morse code and then to MIDI, using an online tool I wrote (https://constantpool.co.uk/morse-code-to-midi/). The raw field recording, captured inside the Pohjala brewery, was then chopped up and layered with effects to build a "wall of sound," which was all structured to create a shoegaze/alt-rock style track."

Pohjala brewery, Tallinn reimagined by Karhide. 

On a visit to the Pohjala artisan brewery in Tallinn, Estonia, we were invited behind the scenes into the brewery itself to record the sounds of beer being made. This soundscape records the beer-making process, with loud industrial noises, drones and hisses coming from large brewing tanks and machinery.

Recorded in September 2024 by Cities and Memory. 

"My field recording was a cable car journey to the top of an old town. In amongst the hubbub of voices there was snatches of music played on a telephone. I decided to use the duration of the cable car journey as a start and end point, placing the listener in the environment, and planting the melodies and rhythms as if caught almost out of ear shot on phones around the space. 

"The human ums, aahs, stamps and claps are the sounds of real depth, the passengers perhaps? As the journey ends we escape into the open air and our song is allowed to escape in full fidelity." 

San Marino cable car reimagined by Douglas Barelegs.

The cable car is the only sensible way to travel up to the precipitous heights of the old town in San Marino, which today is hosting a ComicCon-style festival for lovers of all things sci-fi and fantasy.

Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

"The piece opens with Anders Vinjar’s recording of the stark ambiance outside Auschwitz's crematoriums. A voice notes a chilling continuity: "the acoustics are the same today as it was in 1942". 

Holocaust survivors then share their stories, interwoven with supporting music. Abrupt cuts jolt listeners back to the haunting recording at Auschwitz. As the piece progresses, survivors' warnings blend with news clips and commentary, reflecting humanity's failure of "never again". 

Vocals and music become increasingly echoed and distorted, mirroring the terrible echoes of history that continue to repeat today. 

The piece closes with a plea from a survivor: ending hate and intolerance starts with each of us.

Auschwitz recording by Anders Vinjar reimagined by Music for Sea Monsters.

"The sound is the ambience close to the crematorium ovens in Auschwitz 1, used to exterminate 340 humans per hour. The acoustics is the same today as it was in 1942, when the mass-murder was going full speed.

"This soundscape-composition is part of the HEYR project, presenting 3-dimensional soundscapes from special locations, connected to special events. Find out more by visiting https://www.heyr.no"

© Anders Vinjar, 2025

This recording captures birdsong and locals passing through a quiet public garden in central Mantua. The recording was made on the 29th May 2012, about five minutes after a strong earthquake had struck the Emilia Romagna region, causing significant damage to the UNESCO World Heritage property of the Cathedral, Torre Civica and Piazza Grande. 

Recorded by Cities and Memory. 

"In May 2012, two major earthquakes struck Northern Italy, causing 27 deaths and widespread damage. The events are known in Italy as the 2012 Emilia earthquakes, because they mainly affected the Emilia region.

"The field recording captured birdsong and locals passing through a quiet public garden in central Mantua, five minutes after the Emilia earthquakes. I wanted to depict the contrast between the calmness of the Mantua gardens and the earthquakes that happened within close temporal and distance proximity of each other."

Gardens in Mantova reimagined by Ben Hoang.

"The transitioning nature of the field recording made for some melodic transitioning in the background. The trumpet call ends abruptly but returns again and again."

Krakow trumpet call reimagined by Moray Newlands.

IMAGE: Oliszydlowski, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Probably Poland's most iconic sound, the hejnał mariacki (literally "Saint Mary's dawn") is a trumpet call that sounds every hour on the hour from the highest tower of St Mary's Church in Kraków's rynek glówny (main square). 

The bugler plays the same call four times, once in each of the cardinal directions. This tradition dates back to medieval times, when the call was used to signal the opening and closing of the city gates at dawn and dusk. It was also played to alarm citizens of fires or enemy invasion. 

The theme's abrupt end commemorates the Mongol-Tatar siege of 1241, when the trumpeter warning the city of the imminent threat was shot in the throat by an arrow mid-way through the call. 

Or so the legend goes... I made this recording a couple of months after moving to Kraków as part of a project through which I attempted to reconnect with my Polish-Jewish heritage and, in a more general sense, to explore the experience of migration through sound.

Recorded by Alex Roth.

IMAGE: Oliszydlowski, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons